Tuesday, 26 February 2013

A Place of One's Own (1945) is a British film directed by
Bernard Knowles. An atmospheric ghost story based on the novel by Osbert
Sitwell, it stars James Mason, Barbara Mullen, Margaret Lockwood, Dennis Price
and Dulcie Gray. Mason and Mullen are artificially aged to play the old couple.
It was one of the cycle of Gainsborough Melodramas.

Mr and Mrs Smedhurst (James Mason and Barbara Mullen) are a
business couple wanting to retire. They find a mansion in the country, Bellingham
House, at a bargain price. They move in along with their servants and soon
learn the house is supposedly haunted – but Mr Smedhurst in particular is
sceptical of the paranormal myth. They invite a young companion, Annette
(Margaret Lockwood), to join them but within days of arriving she steadily
begins hearing strange voices. The new owners learn that a young invalid girl
was believed to have been murdered 40 years previously in the house – and their
preconceptions of the supernatural are challenged.

When the spirit of the murdered girl possesses Annette, her
health declines drastically and soon she’s at death's door. A young doctor, Dr
Selbie (Dennis Price), has fallen deeply in love with Annette and attempts to
cure her but to no avail. In a state of delirium, Annette calls for old Dr
Marsham (Ernest Thesiger), the GP who had attended to the dead girl 40 years
earlier.